Artist: Sári Ember
Exhibition title: Longlife
Curated by: Flóra Gadó
Venue: Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Date: July 5 – September 29, 2017
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Ani Molnár Gallery
Sári Ember’s latest works are close follow-ups on her previous exhibitions, meanwhile from a different, fictive point of view she rediscovers her outlook on the topics of family heritage, procession of the course of the past and people’s relation to objects. During the exhibition the space of Ani Molnár Gallery becomes an imaginary family’s unusual living room. The space evokes other associations as well: with its golden curtain which is not covering anything, it resembles a theater with props, but it also looks like a museum and its storage space with the cabinet like shelves. Sári Ember also reflects critically on these spaces and examines how they create different contexts to their objects, which can be admiration, presentation and usage at the same time. The objects appearing in the site-specific installation are simultaneously bear functions and act as mere decorations; their shapes are familiar, yet their colours and design remain unusual, even ironic. Their materiality is ambiguous too: the ceramics are fragile and intimate, and they look like family souvenirs, but the masks which are made from marble, granit and lime-stone are unwearable and irregular – they have one nose or more eyes – and also evoke the difficulty in shifting between those roles, which we take on us everyday.
In the exhibition space we do not see non self-reflective items, but the stories of an invisible pattern coming to life through a family’s objects. These masks, ceramics and other objects are related to one another in a peculiar manner; by becoming anthropomorphic they are arranged in series and constellations, meanwhile being seen sometimes on the photographs as well, as objects which belong to someone. It’s not only the arrangement of the photos which are unusual – they appear not only on the wall but on the shelves as well – but their compositions are also enigmatically refer to the notions of seeing/invisibility, gaze/face and wholeness/fragmentation. It seems as if we are looking at a family album, but we realize, that it is already a construction, the participants are playing either themselves or other peoples different roles. The dominancy of the masks is visible throughout the exhibition and it examines the question of portraiture in a new light. Through the gestures of hiding someone’s face, many facedness and the blindness of the masks itself, the fictional, theater like situation becomes stronger.
Thanks to the layout of the gallery space it can feel like home and like a museum set in the very same time, the elements of which, on the opening day of the exhibition, will leave the bounds of the closed space and come out in the gallery’s garden too. The house’s garden which is covered with ivy, transforms into a strange sculpture park, where the busts and vases are assisting to an invisible scenario.
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Vase 6. (white heads), 2017, glazed ceramics, 31x17x17 cm
Sári Ember, Vase 9. (black and white mask), 2017, glazed ceramics, 19x15x13 cm
Sári Ember, Vase 5. (blue heads), 2017, glazed ceramics, 24x18x18 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Vase 14. (two blue masks), 2017, glazed ceramics, 25,5×15,5×15,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Head of stone, 2017, marble, 24x36x11,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Vase 15. (black mask), 2017, glazed ceramics, 24x19x19 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Vase 12. (two pink masks), 2017, glazed ceramics, 25x15x10,5 cm
Sári Ember, Veil (stone), 2017, silk, painted iron, 110x45x55 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Ornament 1. (black and white head), 2017, glazed ceramics, 37x11x10 cm
Sári Ember, Bust, 2017, marble, painted iron, 160x56x78 cm
Sári Ember, Bust, 2017, marble, painted iron, 160x56x78 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (mask with hands), 2017, c-print, 50×33 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (lying girls), 2017, c-print, 33×50 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (boy with cape and mask), 2017, c-print, 23,5×15,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (girl with naked shoulders), 2017, c-print, 50×33 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (girl in profile), 2017, c-print, 23,5×15,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Pot 1. (pink mask and head), 2017, glazed ceramics, 9x11x2,5 cm
Sári Ember, No title (girl with cups), 2017, c-print, 23,5×15,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (sleeping boy), 2017, c-print, 15,5×23,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Vase 16. (blue heads), 2017, glazed ceramics, 6x6x7 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (mask 1.), 2017, marble, 19,5x27x2 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (mask 6.), 2017, marble, 29,5x23x2 cm
Sári Ember, No title (girl with shadow), 2017, c-print, 23,5×15,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (mask 7.), 2017, marble, 29,5×23,5×3 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, No title (girl with shards), 2017, c-print, 23,5×15,5 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Thimble 3. (grey heads), 2017, glazed ceramics, 3,5×2,2 cm
Sári Ember, No title (mask 4.), 2017, marble, 28x28x2 cm
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest
Sári Ember, Longlife, 2017, exhibition view, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest